With the development of city lifestyle, there are less chances of growing and cultivating plants, trees and flowers using soil. Particularly, it is difficult to introduce a garden to high-rise apartment buildings, and thus people are growing plants in small pots.
Not only for households, but also for streets, streams or the like, many efforts are being made to achieve aesthetic and functional benefits through planting of plants. For example, there is a patent disclosing bricks for sidewalk (Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-0036546) in which pores are formed so that plants can grow therein, thereby creating an eco-friendly environment for parking lots and footpaths.
Also, there is a patent relating to an artificial planting mat comprising a porous web for planting aquatic plants in and around water (Korean Patent Registration No. 513704), and a filler which is filled in the web to promote growth and attachment of the aquatic plants, and a patent relating to an embankment block for planting, which is installed along the embankment face to prevent the washout of soil by running water, and thus soil is maintained in the earth and sand of planted area and fertilized to promote natural plant growth, thus protecting the embankment face while creating an eco-friendly environment (Korean Utility Model Registration No. 295220).
However, the development of techniques, which can incorporate a planting function into building materials to show aesthetic effect as well as functional effect through planting in indoor space such as households or offices, remains unsatisfactory.
Therefore, the present inventors have made extensive efforts to solve the problems occurring in the prior art and as a result, have found that when a porous planting medium is prepared using bentonite and minerals as raw materials, and plant seeds mixed with minerals are planted in pores of the porous planting medium to germinate, then the medium is installed in a building, it shows effects of oxygen supply, humidity control and indoor landscape as well as noise proof, fireproof and heat insulation. Based on the above founding, the present invention has been completed.